Multiple group membership and executive function in a socioeconomically diverse sample

TL;DR

This study explores how being part of multiple social groups affects cognitive performance, particularly in working memory tasks, among a diverse Indonesian sample.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel examination of how multiple group membership and socioeconomic status interact to influence executive function.

Findings

Multiple group membership was positively related to 3-back working memory performance among high SES participants.

Contact diversity was negatively related to working memory performance among low SES participants.

The relationship between social complexity and cognitive performance is moderated by socioeconomic status.

Abstract

Belonging to multiple groups is an important feature of our social lives. However, it is largely unknown if it is related to individual differences in cognitive performance. Given that changing self-identities linked to each group requires cognitive operations on knowledge bases associated with each group, the extent to which people belong to multiple groups may be related to individual differences in cognitive performance. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to test if multiple group membership is related to executive function task performance. A socioeconomically diverse sample of 395 individuals in Indonesia participated in this study. Our results show that multiple group membership was positively related to the 3-back working memory performance. However, we also found that this relationship was significant only among participants with high (not median or low) SES. We also observed that Contact diversity was negatively related to working memory performance among participants with low SES. Our results show that the complexity of our social lives is related to individual differences in executive function performance, although this seems to be constrained by SES.

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